by Willa Okati
“It’s the first one since Simon,” Ivan said. Paper rustled in the background. He’d be up to his ears in depositions. Dennis winced on his behalf. “Good riddance to bad rubbish, sure, but—”
“Is that what you’re worried about?” Dennis laughed. Of course it was. He should have known. Ivan had no brothers, but he’d been born to play the role of a caretaker. And, after reuniting with his Robbie, had taken on the job of seeing everyone he cared about happily partnered off.
“He left you for the reigning Miss Indiana,” Ivan said. “Who he met on the Internet. Sounds like something my brother-in-law would do.”
“That’s laying it on a bit thick.” Dennis raised an eyebrow. The stories he’d heard about this brother-in-law… Whew. “I’m not crying into my ice cream over Simon. He wasn’t my soulmate, and I wasn’t his. We both knew that. We met, we got along, we had an obscene amount of sex, and he went his merry way with someone new. I’m honestly okay with that.”
Minus the subsequent interruption to his sex life. Dennis could have done without that. A break was all well and good to keep the bodily humors balanced, sure. But for the past week, week and a half, he’d been aware of a low-level but steadily growing spike in his libido, as well as a distinct lack of anything or anyone really suitable for scratching the itch.
“Hmm,” Ivan said. He managed to pack an impressive amount of doubt and disapproval in the one vocalization.
Dennis mentally applauded him. “Besides, I’m headed out to Florida next week on vacation. One whole week of white sands and gorgeously crafted margaritas with salt and lime. Lounging in the sun by day and hitting the club scene at night with my friends who are smart enough to live down there full-time. Simon would only have gotten in the way.”
“You don’t have a romantic bone in your body, do you?” Ivan asked.
“Last I checked, nope. Not a one. I bet I don’t even have a soulmate of my own. You know? Personally, I’d rather stay a bachelor.”
“Now you’re just trying to yank my chain,” Ivan grumbled.
“Because it’s so easy.” Dennis cocked his head, catching the sound of his apartment door opening, and the low rumble of two new voices added to the clamor of music and conversation among colleagues and friends of friends. No one he didn’t know or trust, or didn’t trust others to keep tabs on, and yet one of these voices was new to him. Interesting.
“Gotta go,” he said. “If your guilt gets the better of you, then feel free to swing by after work.”
“Don’t think I won’t do exactly that,” Ivan warned. “I’ll help clean up the mess. Keep a watch out for me around three.”
“If it makes you happy.” Dennis shook his head in amusement as he disconnected his call. Ivan meant well, and he’d get over himself sooner or later. He’d pinpointed one of the new arrivals—he thought. “Nathaniel? That you?”
A hand touched his elbow. Ice-cold and slightly damp. Yeowch!
“Oops, sorry. It’s Nathaniel. I brought ice.”
Dennis nodded, satisfied. Though they didn’t know each other well—enough to invite to a party, but not much more—Nathaniel’s sweet voice could be mistaken for no other. Cuddly as a lamb, but a wise man wouldn’t get on his bad side. It’d been Dennis’ privilege to hear him make rowdy teenagers back down when occasion called for a firm hand at the sprawling city library where they both worked. He liked that in a friend.
He didn’t know the lanky fellow standing close enough to Nathaniel to hop in his pocket. “You brought ice and a stranger? You’re too kind.”
“He doesn’t have to stay,” Nathaniel murmured in Dennis’ ear. “It’s just my older brother.”
Right. He had two, if Dennis recalled correctly. He focused on the sensation of shape and mass hovering near Nathaniel’s side, and put out one hand. “Nah, it’s fine. Nice to meet you. You are…?”
“Some call me the gangster of love. Others prefer to address me as Cade,” a light tenor replied as a warm, dry hand clasped his. “Hello. I’m—”
“Trouble,” Nathaniel said. “All trouble.”
Dennis chuckled at the sound of an older brother impatiently thwapping a younger upside his tender head. “I’ll bet you are.” Dennis could almost hear the impishness crackling in Cade’s aura. It helped make up his mind for him. “As long as you vouch for him, he can stay. Eat, drink and be merry, and if you let me miss the eclipse, I’ll skin you alive.”
Cade laughed loudly. “All right. Fair deal, Dennis. And can I say it’s a pleasure to meet you?”
“I’ll bet,” Dennis replied. Oh, he liked the sound of this one. “I might even say the same.”
* * * *
Cade didn’t go far—not that one could range too far afield in a city apartment, even one as spacious and nicely appointed as Dennis’. Comfortable cushiony furniture, tactile knick-knacks, woven wall hangings, and he would bet when there wasn’t a party going on that Dennis kept the place neat as a pin, with a near total lack of clutter. He poked his nose through a door to find the kitchen exactly where he’d have put it if he were to have drawn up blueprints, and elbowed aside a pair of necking lovebirds to drop both bags of ice he carried in the sink.
Outside, Nathaniel had upended his bag of ice into a melty punchbowl that smelled around ninety proof, going by the fumes then promptly ignored it to whip out his phone. His thumbs flew as he texted.
And that was just asking for it, wasn’t it?
Cade filched one piece of the ice and hid it in the cup of his palm until he was close enough to speak in Nathaniel’s ear. “Who’re you talking to?” he asked, and dropped the icy missile down his brother’s collar.
Nathaniel yelped and flinched forward, very nearly sending his phone to an early death in a watery grave. “Cade, you asshole!”
Cade slapped him on the back, not so incidentally over the ice. “You should see your face! Here, it’s only ice.” He tweaked the tail of Nathaniel’s shirt. “See? All gone.”
Nathaniel didn’t look impressed, or inclined to forgive. His cheeks burned tomato red as he balled up his small fist and popped Cade in the ribs. “Don’t do that. What are you still doing here, anyway? I thought you were leaving as soon as you’d finished helping with the ice.”
“I hadn’t finished until a minute or two ago,” Cade pointed out. “The host of the party said I could stay.” He glanced back to Dennis, lounging in the corner and tapping his foot to the beat of the music blaring out of half a dozen speakers. Built sturdy, the kind of body that’d look right at home in a street fight or a wrestling mat. Dark reddish-blond hair cut to chin length, thick with heavy, tangled waves that begged to be mussed, a stubborn chin, and full lips begging to be kissed. He reminded Cade of some of the men in old French films, the kind he’d stolen from the library way back when he’d first got hit by the Hormone Fairy. “You could have told me he was gorgeous.”
“Gorgeous? Him?” Nathaniel made a dubious face. He plucked a red plastic cup off a stack, ladled a dollop of punch in and sniffed. Then sneezed. “Not, ‘you could have told me he was blind’? Unless you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed. You didn’t see the ‘gorgeous’, really?” Cade bent forward to peer at Nathaniel from a closer range. He grinned. “Or is it that you’ve only got eyes for a certain someone?”
Nathaniel warded off Cade’s poking finger before Cade could jab at his well-concealed soulmark. “And if I did?” he demanded, chin up. “What would you do about it?”
Cade couldn’t help but notice his baby brother had clamped a protective hand over his phone while he made his protests. “Oh-ho! Is that who you were texting so industriously?”
Nathaniel squeaked. “No.”
“Now that is the face of a lying liar who lies. Let me see.” Cade made a feint for the phone, hooting when Nathaniel clutched it to his chest. “Ah, come on. Is he going to be here?” He drew up short when Nathaniel’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars. “He is? No wonder you wanted me to get gone.”
“Which he told you via text,” Cade surmised. If he had a chance of finding out who Nathaniel’s soulmate was—
His grab for the phone failed. Nathaniel might pull his punches most of the time, but he was a clever little man. He snatched up a handful of ice and pelted Cade with it. While Cade spluttered, a guilty sensation that he’d gone too far sank in along with the icy shock, Nathaniel glared at him. He cradled his phone tight.
“Remember what you said earlier about inviting you to go play in traffic? Consider it.”
With a huff, he shouldered past Cade. As he stalked away, the iPod responsible for the night’s entertainment tumbled out of its stand. The plugs that kept it live twitched out of their sockets, and silence fell like the slap of a wet blanket.
Across the way, Dennis raised his hands in a slow golf clap.
Ah, damn. Cade hunched his shoulders. The glimmerings of guilt solidified into a needling spike of reproach. “I am a bad, bad man.”
“You really are,” Dennis said with a frown that laid the hammer down on Cade’s buttons. “Better apologize to him, or the host will decide you can’t stay after all.”
God, the man was handsome, wasn’t he? Cade glanced after Nathaniel, who’d disappeared in the direction of what he presumed to be a balcony jammed with potted plants. “I will. Promise. Better let him calm down first. He doesn’t lose his cool often, but when he does…” He whistled.
“That’s been my impression of him so far. Long fuse, big boom. As long as you do make peace, then you can stay.”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“I wouldn’t go that far.” Dennis sat forward, beckoning to Cade with two fingers as party-goers sorted the music out. He had a grin with some edge to it, lively and wild, and a deeply timbred laugh that sent a nice ripple of reverb through Cade’s bones. “In fact, I’d say you should come here, so I don’t have to shout to be heard. Gorgeous, am I?”
“Very gorgeous,” Cade said in that lovely tenor of his. The sound put Dennis in mind of sipping whiskey served on the rocks, cool and refreshing but with an unexpected bite. Dennis heard the thump and bump of Cade hooking a padded footstool out to perch on, close enough to reach out and touch—and reach out he did, taking Dennis’ hand in his to brush his lips over the knuckles. “And I think you know it, too.”
Dennis would normally introduce anyone so daring as that to the flat of his hand, but he couldn’t help giving in now. Cade’s temperament tickled his mood as well as the short hairs of a soul patch on his chin. “I see how it is. You’re a scoundrel, aren’t you?”
“The black sheep of the family,” Cade agreed with seeming good humor. He didn’t let go of Dennis’ hand.
Dennis nudged him loose, almost regretting it. “And you’re, what? Nathaniel’s oldest brother?”
“Hardly. The position of the Eldest Gruff had been taken long before I was born. And then, when no one thought of such a thing as being possible, Baby Bear came along to surprise us all.”
Dennis snorted quietly. Feedback, then music blasted his ears. Sounded like they’d sorted the technical difficulties. Good—he wouldn’t have to go and deal with the mess. “Gruff goats and baby bears and black sheep,” he said. “Did you grow up in a house, or a zoo?”
“Six of one, half a dozen of the other, but absolutely mannerless,” Cade said, still cheerful, though the music made it harder to pick out the tonal differences between text and subtext. “Hope Nathaniel doesn’t stay pissed off with me long. Maybe I’ll take him with me the next time I go hang-gliding.”
Dennis arched an eyebrow. He could easily imagine Cade taking off with a whoop of glee and a mighty leap, but Nathaniel? Not exactly. “You think he’d enjoy that?”
“Actually, no, probably not,” Cade said. “Damn. I’ll think of something better.”
“White water rafting, for example.”
“All things are possible.” Cade snapped his fingers. Dennis could hear the daring tease in his tone. “A mountain lion. That’s what you remind me of.”
“Do I?” Dennis asked. The more he listened to Cade, the more that pleasant, deep-shivery feeling took root in his gut and groin. A slow-burning arousal that reminded him of waking up leisurely on vacation mornings, with nothing else to do but enjoy himself. “Wouldn’t that make me your natural predator?”
“One of them. I’d better watch myself.”
He felt a waft of air as Cade sifted his fingertips through the tips of his hair.
“Look at you,” Cade murmured. “All red and gold and fierce.”
“A silver-tongued scoundrel, at that,” Dennis said. And one who, as far as he could tell, genuinely neither cared nor was fazed by a blind man. That made for both a new and different sort of experience. Honestly, he usually had to fend off questions by the handful, but from Cade? Nothing.
Simon had tried to lead him around by the hand on their first date. No thank you.
Cade might be well worth getting to know.
All right, then. Let’s see what happens. Dennis cocked his head. Whoever had fixed the sound system must have switched playlists from thumping bass to sultry seduction. Still a good beat, but one that went to the loins, not the limbs. Music that demanded the sway of hips and the touch of skin to skin, an urge strong enough to prompt him to ask, “Do you dance?”
“Everyone dances. It’s human nature. You hear a song you like, and your feet start to move.”
“I hoped you’d say that,” Dennis murmured. He pushed himself to his feet, holding out a hand for Cade to take. “I can’t promise I won’t step on your toes, but I’m game if you are.”
He heard Cade’s chuckle, a low and sinfully spicy ripple of sound, one that fit nicely with the bracing warmth of his touch. When he took Dennis’ hand and pulled him close enough for comfort, Dennis couldn’t help noticing he had lean hips and the long stretch of leg that usually only featured in his more enjoyable dreams.
“You’re trouble too, aren’t you?” Cade asked.
“I try,” Dennis said, comfortably wrapping one arm around Cade’s neck. Strong shoulders. Yum. “Put your money where your mouth is, Mr Personality. Let’s see those all-natural moves.”
Who needed Simon or the bother of searching for a soulmate, when he could have fun like this?
Chapter Two
Cade meant to glance at the clock in passing. He juddered to a stop instead, squinted to be sure of the numbers, and whistled. Midnight already?
I must be having fun.
He grinned as he shouldered past the table boasting the sadly neglected punchbowl. Attempts at civility had long since given way to a keg and more than a few fellows with pocket flasks. Any soda left got mixed with rum or vodka, and the party rolled on.
“Why’d you even have that in the first place?” he’d asked Dennis the first time he’d brought the man a refill.
“Mostly to see exactly who would try to spike it on the sly, and when,” had been his reply.
Cade didn’t have literal hearts in his eyes, but he figured he wasn’t far from it either. His baby brother had excellent taste in friends. He dodged a pair of gender-indeterminate characters busily occupied with rocking one another’s worlds to the tune of the Barenaked Ladies, and took a misstep. Stumbling to set himself to rights, he backed through an open doorway and promptly drowned in the pervasive smell of herbs.
He sneezed.
“Bless you,” Nathaniel said. When Cade blinked up at him, he saw in the dimness that Nathaniel had perched himself on a short settee in the corner of Dennis’ sunroom. He’d left his phone on a windowsill packed with potted plants, and appeared to be in peaceful communion with the catmint.
“Leave it to you to find the one crumb of peace and quiet in here.”
“It’s a gift.”
“No doubt about that.” Cade eyed his brother. None of his earlier pique seeme
d readily apparent, but with Nathaniel, still waters tended to run truly fucking deep. “So. Still pissed at me?”
Some people used oars to get themselves out of shit creek. Cade preferred the depth charge approach.
Nathaniel wrinkled his nose at Cade. “I’m not sure. You haven’t apologized yet.”
Fair enough. Cade asked, with a gesture, if he could sit down. Nathaniel replied, with an eyebrow, that he was welcome to if he didn’t mind pulling up a patch of floor. Such were the skill sets of brothers. Cade chose to wedge himself between a table full of something unidentifiably green and spicy-smelling, and cleared his throat.
Nathaniel finally allowed a smile to peek through. “All right, Cade. I won’t make you say the actual words. Don’t do it again, all right? My business with Ab—with my soulmate is my business. You’ll know who he is when I’m ready to tell you, and not a minute beforehand. Deal?”
Cade whimpered as he bit down the whipcrack response of Ab? Ab who? that wanted to pop out. Abner? Absalom?
Nathaniel beamed at him.
“You did that on purpose,” Cade said with a suspicious frown. “And here Dennis thinks you’re as sweet as honey.”
“He doesn’t know me that well.” Nathaniel sighed and abandoned the catmint to its green and growing agenda to lean on the wall. He looked about ready to curl up for a nap. Cade wasn’t fooled. That was the look of a man planning mischief. “Dennis thinks, hmm? You two are getting along like a house on fire.”
Cade grinned broadly. “He’s a hellion. My kinda guy.”
“I thought he might be.” Nathaniel propped his chin on his hand. “You like him a lot, don’t you?”
“I could see myself hanging out with him.”
Nathaniel waited three beats. When Cade didn’t tack additional verbiage to the end of that sentence, he plucked a leaf from the plant and whipped it at him. “That’s all?”
“There should be more?” Cade asked, honestly perplexed. “We just met. I’m not sure what you’re digging for, here.”